Flying with Children

Well, that was fun. Yep, I adore being locked in a plane with nearly all the people in a twenty aisle radius despising my child while he screams his head off for three hours of a four hour flight. Good times. At least I swapped seats with DH halfway through to get a break, and was treated to a pretty complaisant DD who was quite happy with her DVD of Dora and a snack. I admit, however, that I was more than a little interrupted in my attempts to read Pamela Aidan's Pride & Prejudice spin-off, An Assembly Such As This, by the fact that my child was screaming for me three aisles up.

But I digress. Let me acquaint you with the teeth gritting, hair pulling, 'why on earth would anyone in Customer Service think this is the way to treat people I ASK YOU???' inconveniences of traveling by air with small children these days. Ahem.

First, there is no such thing as "pre-boarding" any more, people...at least not with American Airlines. We got to pre-board with British Airways for our trip to Ireland, but apparently any domestic destination magically means parents don't need any extra time to shepherd recalcitrant children onto their unfamiliar aircraft, navigate the aisles carrying aircraft-approved carseats, and get said carseats properly installed in such a way that you can actually unbuckle the airline seatbelts when you get to your destination. Well, as you can probably guess, we did need that extra time. I suppose it is something of a marvel to me, how many parents we saw flying with children in the regular airplane seatbelts, but personally I just cannot fathom putting my kids in the airplane seatbelts. First, I know for a fact that they would definitely NOT stay in them. Each would be wiggled out of that sucker faster than I could threaten grievous consequences (no Dora! no ice cream!). Then would follow the agony of grabbing at flailing child parts from underneath the seat, or the one in front, or the aisle. Yes, that would be SO fun, wouldn't it? Second, what about the danger to the kids from turbulence or worse? (And yes, it does happen, having been on a pretty turbulent flight myself, and YES, planes do crash occasionally, and I personally know a plane crash survivor, so maybe I am a bit more paranoid than most.) If your kid is old enough that you have to pay for the seat anyway, what difference is it to you if you have to bring the carseat or booster? They make these marvelous things called "luggage wheels", and you can attach them to your carseat...and you know, it doesn't count as a carry-on! Imagine!

Anyhoo, we had a total of four flights for this little cross-country jaunt to Virginia, and that meant we had four times of wondering whether we would get to pre-board or not. The first gate agent explained that First Class and the "Preferred" classes (AA frequent flyers, Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Tourmaline, Jet, Jet-Lagged...you name it, these encompass about a third of the plane and they all get to board before you) had the luxury of pre-boarding, but they do not pre-board families with small children. How nice. Thank you so much. She winked and nudged us in when we would have "pre-boarded" on British Airways, for which we are most grateful. However, the other three gate agents exhibited varying degrees of sympathy for our situation, from "None" to "You can board with Group 2" instead of Group 3. Oh gee, how generous. Thanks much. Carrying the carseat & attempting not to slam it into other people's elbows was really all we could each manage, so the kids HAD to get down the aisle on their own two feet. I'm sure all the folks backed up the jetway while we coaxed our reluctant 19 month old all the way down, down, down the aisle were understanding of their stay in a non-air conditioned jetway in Dallas/Ft. Worth in August. Really.

Next, we were informed abruptly at the first gate that we could NOT sit four together, and still use both carseats. What? Yes, their policy is that carseats must be used ONLY in a window seat, so we could either not use a carseat for one of our children (see above), or we had to get our seats reassigned to a 2 x 2 arrangement. Oh joy. I, for one, was pretty hacked off that their website, which they direct you to for ANY sort of customer service or assistance, had absolutely NO NOTICE of this policy! You can bet your bippy that we are writing a tidy little letter to American about this little gem of information which was so happily neglected from all relevant booking details on their entire website. Again our first gate agent was a gem and reassigned two people to other seats so we could be in two contiguous rows, and she was able to do the same for our flight from DFW to Virginia. Yay! On our way home, however, we were not so fortunate. We had no way of changing our seat assignment online and the phone agent could do nothing for us, so we had to rely on the gate agent. Well, the gate agents on the way back were less helpful. They were not terribly willing to move people, and as a result on our last flight we were separated by three rows.

At least it not me who had to deal with the woman across the aisle from my howling son, but my DH. I would probably not have the grace to have responded as politely as he had to her suggestion of, "Give that baby some milk and crackers, he's probably hungry." Um, yeah. In case you hadn't noticed, he has refused every snack offered. My DH said, "Thanks, but he's just tired and needs to go to sleep." Nothing more fun than strangers offering pointless advice because they are annoyed by your screaming child, yet not doing anything that might help him to go to sleep, like keep their own slightly older children from constantly peeping at the crying child, causing him to stop 'zoning out' toward sleep and laugh at your child, before screaming again when she peeps out of view. And I need not mention the flickering cabin lights that had the same effect.

I have nothing but good things to say about the baggage handling. They did not lose any of our bags, and they did get them out to the carousel before we arrived at it. Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that we were, without exception, the last people off every plane we were on.

All in all, I would recommend highly to anyone even contemplating travel with a baby from the age of 18 months to 3 years--just don't do it. JUST DON'T DO IT. Please, spare yourself the agonizing embarassment and teeth grinding frustration of dealing with a child in an unfamiliar situation who is old enough to know what he/she WANTS and not old enough to be distracted or reasoned with. That's it. We are staying WA for the next 18 months, or traveling in short distances by car. I could not repeat that experience again. And if you happen to be an employee of American Airlines, please b#$%h slap the VP who removed the pre-boarding option for families with young children. And while you're at it, slap your idiot web designer too, who hasn't included any information on carseats or ways to indicate that you will be using one for your minor child. Ugh.